• Discover his or her talents;
• Identify goals;
• Create a plan of action to meet those goals; and
• Review on a regular basis to make sure he/she is still on target.

Unfortunately, it’s easy for a college student to get distracted from his or her plan, and that is a why a major part of your role is that review step, helping to keep your family’s collective “eyes on the prize.”

And prizes will come, though maybe not as often as when your student was young, and “gold stars” were handed out regularly, or trophies bestowed, simply for turning in homework or being part of a sports team.

It’s a fact of college life that formal recognition may not come at all.  So as you work behind the scenes in support of your student, you should remember to celebrate – in a way appropriate to your family’s sensibilities – the progress that is being made.

You don’t have to throw a party, but every step that is completed should be acknowledged as being important.  You should make it clear that you are proud of the progress that your student is making.

As you celebrate, you can remind your student that it’s one thing to set a goal and quite another thing to accomplish that goal.  In noting his or her accomplishments, you can make the point that colleges, grad schools and employers are far more interested in what gets done than in how hard someone has worked.

Remember, results count.  That is an important message for students to learn, and for you to serve as a constant reference point.

At College Parents of America, we believe that is part of your job to provide unconditional love, and encouragement, throughout the college years.  If you remember to provide gentle, but firm, reminders of what is to be accomplished while the student is in college, our educated guess is that your family will indeed have much to celebrate.

There is no better way to honor College Parents of America’s founder, Doug Laughlin, and his wife, Grace, than by creating a college scholarship program in their names. After looking closely at what types of scholarship we should offer, we decided to take a dual approach, with five scholarships going to first-generation college-bound students and five going to continuing undergraduate students, who have proven themselves to be exceptional leaders inside or outside of the classroom.

To be awarded a Doug and Grace Laughlin First Generation College-Bound Scholarship, a student must be:

• a first-time freshman who is part of the first generation in his/her family to attend college;
• pursuing his/her degree at an accredited post-secondary institution; and
• defined as a full-time student at the college where he/she is enrolled.

Applicants for the Doug and Grace Laughlin Exceptional Leader Scholarships must be:

• if a first time freshman applicant, an “honor student” as defined by the high school from which he/she graduated; or
• if a college upperclassman, a holder of at least a 3.00 grade point average at the institution most recently attended;
• pursuing his/her first undergraduate degree at an accredited post-secondary institution;
• defined as a full-time student at the college where he/she is enrolled; and
• demonstrating outstanding leadership skills inside or outside the classroom.

To be eligible, award recipients must also be registered as a subscriber, affiliate or member of College Parents of America. Membership level is not required and does not influence the selection process.

College Parents of America will award five $1,000 scholarships to first-generation, college freshmen for the 2010/2011 academic year, as well as five $1,000 scholarships to exceptional leaders, no matter what their year in school, for the same upcoming school year.

As College Parents of America continues to grow, so will our scholarship program. Our goal is to empower parents to best support their children on the path to and through college.

The 2010 – 2011 College Parents of America’s Scholarship Program will be awarded throughout the entire academic year. Online applications are available right now at www.collegeparents.org/scholarships.

Gaining career experience – such as through an internship – has become a vital ingredient to boost graduate employability. In fact, more than 75% of employers prefer graduates with relevant work experience, according to a study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Other recent studies indicate that those who intern are twice as likely to get job offers before graduation, secure jobs three times faster, stay within their field of study, and – on average – earn a $2,250 higher starting salary.

So why don’t more students take more initiative to intern?

“It’s often a combination of feeling lost, apathetic or intimated coupled with a lack of support from the schools,” explains Matthew Zinman, founder of The Internship Institute (TII), a non-profit organization solely focused on assuring the quality and integrity of the internship experience. “No two schools do anything the same way and – when it comes to internships, very few provide adequate support systems for students and employers,” he says.

The need to fill these gaps has prompted TII to develop a career preparation and certification course at www.InternshipSuccess.com. It has three online sessions. The first shows students how to find and get the right internship. The second is about turning the opportunity into a rewarding experience. And the third provides comprehensive training on 20 workplace skills to perform well in a professional setting. Students also have access to more than 70 downloadable course supplements that include a broad range of career support tools and topics. After completing the course, the student is then awarded a Certificate of Career Preparation as a résumé-builder.

“Parents tend to like what we provide students because we kind of grab them by the scruff and say “If you want to take charge of your future, here’s what it takes to succeed’ and then we give them everything they need to do it,” says Zinman. “There’s no substitute for experience. This is about what they don’t learn in the classroom. We provide more career development advice and resources here than they’ll ever find in one place. So we truly believe that students will gain more doing this than from an entire semester of courses combined. They just need to follow our lead and apply themselves.”

As much as the course might be a smart use of time and effort, students should definitely take advantage of any services offered by their school’s career center and/or support from their academic department. Unfortunately, those who do remain in the minority, according to NACE, which estimates that less than 40% of undergraduates EVER utilize the career center. At the very least, students can get help to polish their résumé, improve their interviewing and job search skills, participate in campus events, and gain access to any number of other resources.

As increasingly important as internships have become, they’re also more difficult to come by as employers have cutback in the down economy. There simply aren’t as many internships available as there are students seeking them. However, there are various alternatives for students to gain real-world exposure and experience. They can take the initiative to set up informational interviews and parlay them into job shadowing and other professional networking opportunities. Volunteering for a local non-profit is certainly one example where a student can do well by doing good.

It’s never too soon for students to do what it takes to break into the competitive job market. No lecture, textbook, lecture, exam or lab can replace the benefits of gaining hands-on experience. The summer slowdown is the perfect time for students to invest the time to get smart, get moving and get a leg up. Parents can play a pivotal role by offering the encouragement and support to make sure students do just that.

And what better time than the 4th of July to share with you 25 reasons to celebrate education across America?

So what follows then is the first half of a complete list of each and every state – in alphabetical order – followed by some positive nugget about education in that state that I have gleaned in my role at College Parents of America. I’ll complete the list of all 50 states, with comments included, in a later July column. So you fact-checkers out there don’t have a field day, let’s just call these “impressions” as opposed to strict, every t-crossed “facts.”

Now, the first half of our alphabetical and educational journey across America:

ALABAMA is home to some of the premier “HBCUs” in the U.S., a term that refers to “Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” public and private colleges and universities that have provided outstanding educations to men and women of all colors, but primarily from the African-American community.

ALASKA provides excellent K-12, and college, education opportunities to members of the Native American community, who sometimes must travel extremely long distances to gain schooling that will provide options for employment or higher education available beyond the reservation or local town.

ARIZONA has been fairly quiet on the Western educational front, but its state schools, such as Arizona State University, grow ever more competitive, thanks mainly to the population explosion in Phoenix and environs. And University of Phoenix continues to be the fastest growing “college” in America.

ARKANSAS is home to Hendrix College, emblematic of a large and growing number of relatively small schools that can provide a great education to a young person who wants to learn in a somewhat laid-back setting with classrooms where everybody knows your name.

CALIFORNIA is a place unlike any other, a veritable “nation state” with one of the world’s largest economies and probably the world’s finest dual system of public higher education – the “UC” schools, and the “Cal State” schools. While both systems are under severe financial stress, securing a place at one of these schools’ honors colleges is often more difficult than securing a spot at one of the most selective colleges in the East.

COLORADO has, for better or for worse, received more attention for its Ward Churchill controversy than for the broader higher educational opportunities offered through its great collection of public and private colleges and universities.

CONNECTICUT’s most well-known public university, UCONN in Storrs, is only one of several state schools that provide a strong education to students from diverse backgrounds, of varying ages and who are pursuing career paths with mostly a very practical – and admirable – intent.

DELAWARE’s flagship state school, the University of Delaware in Newark, not only has one of the most entertaining sports team names – “Fighting Blue Hens” – but is also one of the best examples of the so-called “Public Ivies.” These are large, state-funded institutions that have somehow been able to break through in terms of their reputation for providing wonderful undergraduate educations.

FLORIDA in education, as in so many fields, is sort of a laboratory for the future, as its ever-growing, ever-changing population wrestles with the importance of early childhood education as a precursor to success in school, and as its aging men and women are asked increasingly to help pick up the tab for America’s school bills.

GEORGIA’s Hope Scholarship, which transfers funds from the state’s lottery to help pay college tuitions at in-state schools for those who meet basic entry requirements, has become the lightning rod for discussion of the wisdom of such programs. Most think that Hope is beyond reproach, but others feel it is contributing to a misallocation of finite financial aid resources, from those in need to those who attain certain pre-college educational goals.

HAWAII has caught my attention due to the number of long-standing programs that it has for placing students in mainland U.S. colleges of all stripes, thereby promoting effective cultural exchange that works in both directions.

IDAHO’s Boise State is creating some buzz for reasons beyond the unusual blue color of its football field. This school is increasingly drawing out-of-state residents who are lured by Idaho’s quality of life, and its varied offerings appeal to those who may not necessarily have their minds made up on a career at the time they enter school.

ILLINOIS is home to my alma mater, Northwestern University, which is still the ideal size and location for an undergraduate institution – large enough to offer several high-quality fields of study and relatively quiet on the main campus, but close to the vibrancy of Chicago right next door.

INDIANA is the place where one of the best research institutions in the country – IU in Bloomington – works on the cutting edge in fields too numerous to mention. OK, one that must be noted is higher education itself – warts and all – which is studied by a team of researchers who follow admissions and student trends very closely.

IOWA was the first state to contact us through official channels, asking to partner on the creation of a “College Parents of Iowa,” with a particular focus on the higher educational challenges in that locale. Iowa is also the headquarters of ACT, the well-run service that draws nearly as many test-takers as the College Board’s SAT.

KANSAS, to be honest, has not jumped on my radar screen in any significant way, but I do have a soft spot for the state, as my wife used to work for former Senator (and presidential candidate) Robert Dole. Let’s salute Mr. Dole and all other surviving WW II veterans, as their numbers dwindle every single day.

KENTUCKY’s flagship university, UK in Lexington, is starting to be given a run for its educational – and athletic – money by the University of Louisville, a formerly commuter-dominant school that is working seriously on creating a cohesive campus culture. Those UL Redbirds are really starting to peck away at the Wildcats.

LOUISIANA, like many states, is addressing a serious “brain drain” issue by attempting to strengthen dramatically the quality of its public colleges and universities, and by encouraging more of those who study at its various private schools to stay in Cajun Country when they graduate. Louisiana’s brain drain was, of course, exacerbated by the effects of Katrina, and it could be similarly impacted by the Gulf oil spill.

MAINE benefits from a congressional delegation, led by senior Senator Olympia Snowe, who pay close attention to the interests of the state, but who also take the long view when it comes to the interests of the nation, particularly in the area of education policy.

MARYLAND students and their families have benefited from some very smart judgments on the part of Britt Kirwin, who runs the University of Maryland system, which includes the flagship in College Park. Kirwin has evangelized for years that, in order for colleges and universities to have credibility when raising tuition, they must take a hard line on the expense side of the equation, and try to hold down their costs as much as possible.

MASSACHUSETTS is a trendsetter when it comes to education policy, particularly as it relates to higher education. The high number of colleges in the Boston area, as well as the higher-than-average levels of education attainment among Massachusetts’s residents, makes the Bay State a natural laboratory for education policy debates.

MICHIGAN, my home state, is feeling the effects of what cynics call a “one-state” recession, as its automobile-based manufacturing economy continues to suffer. This puts a squeeze on education-related state spending, both for K-12 and for higher Ed, an issue that extends far beyond this one state.

MINNESOTA is the home base of Scholarship America, emblematic of an extremely large group of non-profit entities dedicated to providing scholarship opportunities to young people entering or in the midst of college. Nearby, this state’s flagship university, UofM, is one of the recognized leaders among public schools in terms of providing support for parents, thanks to the efforts of parent relations director Marjorie Savage.

MISSISSIPPI, like the vast majority of states, was not been tarred with the student loan scandal because the financial aid officials at schools in that state are much the same as their colleagues who work elsewhere – dedicated professionals with the best interest of the students they serve at heart.

Last but not least, concluding the first part of this American education tour is MISSOURI, where an increasing emphasis on career planning out of high school is leading students to better focus on the practicality of post-secondary studies that they may pursue.

As noted, the other 25 states, and Washington, DC, will be covered in a column later this month. I had fun writing up these state-specific items and I hope that you found them of interest.

Best wishes for an enjoyable Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Three interacting forces threaten the nation’s fragile prosperity and sense of cohesion. These forces are:

• economic restructuring that places a premium on literacy and numeracy skills;
• uneven distribution of those skills; and
• sweeping demographic changes for the U.S. population, especially the workforce.

Taken together, it’s a perfect storm. And much like Sebastian Junger’s best-selling book of the same name, the tale is as true as it is scary. However, unlike the players in that book, who could only hope to survive as their fishing boat submerged off the coast of Nova Scotia, we have a chance to help address some of the seemingly intractable problems that plague our nation before they sink our economic and political boat.

The purpose of today’s column is to bring these problems to your attention in a way that they may not have been described before. That is a much broader purpose than this e-mail usually serves, but sometimes we must emerge from our world of AP courses, standardized test prep and comforts for the dorm room, and look at the wider universe in which we and our students are living.

America’s perfect storm can be seen in a number of ways, and through waves of numbers. Do you know, for instance, that high school graduation rates peaked in the U.S. nearly 40 years ago, in 1969, at 77 percent? By 1995, this rate had fallen back to 70 percent and it has stayed that way ever since.

Now, to be sure, a greater percentage of those graduates decide, every year, to pursue college, but what are the prospects for those 30 percent of high school students who don’t make it to graduation? Personally very dim for them, of course, but collectively not very good for all of us, especially when you consider the world of global competitiveness in which we live.

Presumably, you are reading this column either because you have a child already in college or one who will soon be entering post-secondary studies. On the one hand, you may be fine with the fact that not all students aspire to attend college, as that means a slightly less competitive admissions landscape.

Yet, when you consider that two-thirds of the job growth between the years 1984 and 2009 came from the creation of positions that require a college education, you then can begin to picture the dead end of opportunity facing those who don’t pursue at least a bachelor’s or associate’s degree. In short, what may be good for your family may not be good for our country.

The immigration debate is probably best left to another venue, or at least another column, but a cold dose of some immigration facts should be relayed to you for context as to why changing demographics are contributing to America’s perfect storm.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Hispanic share of the U.S. population will be slightly more than 20 percent by 2030 and, in certain areas of the country, even higher. Nearly 57 percent of the 16- to 64-year-old Hispanic population in the U.S. is foreign-born, up from 46 percent in 1990. More than half of immigrant Hispanics lack a high school diploma.

Since 80 percent of immigrants who have not earned a high school diploma self-report that they “do not speak English well or at all,” there is a steep economic hill for them to climb, and a two-step challenge to overcome: learning English well enough to eventually finish high school and utilizing that learned English to achieve success in college and attain a well-paying job.

Bottom line: If our society’s overall levels of learning and skills are not increased and the existing gaps are not narrowed, there is little chance that economic opportunities will improve among key segments of our population.

What can be done? That is the $64,000 question or, to be more precise, the $1,000,000 question as that is the difference, on average, between the lifetime earnings of one with a college degree and someone who fails to attain a high school diploma.

I don’t claim to have the answer here, but I did want to start a dialogue which can eventually lead to solutions. Thank you for sticking with my somber assessment of America’s past performance, present challenges and future prospects when it comes to educating our workforce. And please share your views on how we as a nation can best ride out and survive America’s perfect storm.

So when Administrators Promoting Parent Involvement (APPI) gather today at their annual meeting in Boston, they will be doing so with your interests in mind and at heart. Of all of the offices at a college or university, and schools have many, it is the offices that these professionals run which regard you – the parent – as the key “customer” in a symbiotic relationship.

The admission office wants your enrollment contract, and the bursar’s office wants your money, but the parent relations office wants your feedback. Their job is to serve you, to learn your concerns, and to communicate those concerns to the proper channels at the university.

Because they are professionals, however, these individuals make “professional judgments” in the course of doing their job. Sometimes, that may mean saying “no” to your request to get involved in a roommate dispute or an academic question. Parent relations pros know that such issues are better resolved by the student or, if resolution is not possible, then at least they will be a student learning experience.

Do you interact with the parents relations office at your son or daughter’s school? How do you rate your experience? Please share your thoughts with us below.

I’m not talking about a new generation of students, but a transitioning generation of parents. Very soon, the so-called “Gen Xers,” those born between 1961 and 1981 will be the dominant group of college parents. That’s right, college parents.

Think about it and do the math. The oldest GenXers are turning 49 years old this year. Even if they waited until their 30s to have children, then those students are now becoming college-aged.

Over the past two years, the University of Minnesota has looked at the age range of its parents and saw a one-year jump from 14% Gen Xers to 24% Gen Xers. As that trend continues, and is felt on other college campuses, it won’t take long for these Gen Xers to be the dominant group of college parents.

Now, of course, in some ways baby-boomer parents have been doing a trial run for what colleges and universities may expect to see in GenX parents.

Baby boomers emerged from the wreckage of the 60s and 70s as the most college-educated generation themselves, and that raised their level of expectations when it comes to college for their children. These baby boomer (and I am one) parents were also largely left alone by their own parents, and that has resulted in a boomerang effect, with these neglected boomers holding on tight to their own children as they progressed from kindergarten through college.

Well, colleges are discovering that GenXers are even more college-educated than boomers and that they were even more left alone as children, becoming the core of what were known as the “latch-key kids.”

These strands of similarities, coupled with the differences that GenXers uniquely lay claim to, make for a compelling case that when it comes to involved parenting styles, colleges “ain’t seen nothing yet” when it comes to GenXers.

These GenX parents have been demanding accountability from the K-12 system for years, and now they will be doing the same of colleges.

These GenX parents have been closely monitoring the lives of their children for years, and it may be much harder for them to let go when it comes to college.

These GenX parents are embracing of new technology, so colleges won’t be able to send out a quarterly print newsletter or put items on their website that have already been made available through other channels.

GenX parents want news about their children delivered unvarnished and without delay. They are more disciplined than boomers, but also less forgiving. As one parent professional put it, they are not so much “helicoptering,” but rather they are “lurking.”

Are you a baby-boomer or a GenXer? If a boomer, what advice can you pass on to your GenX brethren? If a GenXer, what do you want to change about the way that colleges treat parents? Share your thoughts by commenting here.

That is a question that you should be grappling with, and beginning to answer, if you are the parent of an aspiring college student.

And, if you are the parent of a college freshman or upperclassman, then it is a question for which you should have formulated an answer.   You should also be thinking about how to communicate the thrust of that answer to your child and, if possible, to officials at the school your child attends or will be attending.

Heavy stuff, you may be thinking to yourself.

Important stuff, too, I say to you.

It’s important because the role that you can play as individual parents in defining accountability in higher education may be the most important collective role that we as a group can play over the next twenty years.

If we as parents decide that accountability in higher education means what it has for the past twenty years, then we have only ourselves to blame if costs continue to go up, if graduation rates remain spotty and if the meaning of an undergraduate degree starts to become marginalized in the career marketplace.

But if we as a group decide that accountability in higher education means that school finance offices must account for every dollar spent, that school academic affairs offices must explain every course taken and that school career planning offices must justify the return on investment of coursework and degree-granting programs, then we may have ourselves to thank for creating an atmosphere where the education our kids receive is as grounded in the real world as it is eye-opening to new worlds.

I am not suggesting some sort of groupthink, or that every parent should agree on some very narrow definition of accountability.  Yet I am suggesting that what has passed for accountability in the past, simply will not work in the future.

It is not accountability when colleges and universities graduate students who are financially illiterate, grammatically challenged and, in a flat world, linguistically limited or culturally unaware.

It is not accountability when the issuance of a some students’ diplomas are held up if campus parking tickets are unpaid, but expedited when a new degree-granting program needs examples of “results,” even though the curriculum behind such a program may be far from finished in its construction.

And it is not accountability when the constituents at the accountability-defining table include every component of the higher education family, except those who have molded the students into young adults and those who are paying a significant portion of the higher education bill, namely us. . .the parents.

It is accountability when. . .well, I’ve already shared some of my thoughts on the answer, but my views are not nearly as important as yours. Please share your comments on what  accountability should mean in higher education, as I look forward to receiving your views — from whatever angle you choose and from whatever vantage point you occupy.

They are your children. They are members of the generation that began to enter college at the Millennium and they are still entering college in record numbers, as far as the eye can see and as long our family budgets will allow.

Their name, the “millennials,” has been coined by two remarkable historians, Neil Howe and William Strauss, whose seminal book, Generations of American History, set the stage for several books to follow, including Millennials Go to College.

As their core thesis, Howe and Strauss argue that, since the American Revolution, each generation of Americans possesses certain characteristics which are not only shaped by, but which also serve to greatly influence, the time in which they live.

Much has been written by Tom Brokaw and others about the “greatest generation,” the group of people born between 1900 and the mid-1920s, who won freedom’s greatest victory in WWII, and laid the foundation for the prosperity of the last half of the 20th century.

Howe and Strauss are respectful of those accomplishments, but they have a different name for the “greatest generation.” They call it the “silent generation,” with one reason being how “silent” most members of this generation were about the college preparation, application and financing choices of their children.

We baby-boomers and Gen Xers are “making up” for this silence of our parents’ generation by becoming much more involved in the lives of our children. This involvement is not just at the K-12 level, but also earlier in our shared style of infant and toddler parenting and later in our fervent desire to have our children attend the institution of higher education that is best for them, and in our quest to stay more connected to our children’s college experience.

And our “millennial” children seem to like the attention they are receiving from us, as long as we don’t overdo it.

According to Howe and Strauss, millennials as a group are:

• optimistic about the future;
• realistic about the present;
• resilient and hard-working; and
• very much into setting goals and meeting those goals,

Probably rings familiar, doesn’t it? There are exceptions, of course, but these are indeed the general characteristics of our children and we, at College Parents of America, are dedicated to helping you to support, in productive and appropriate ways, these millennials in our midst.

Fortunately, according to Howe and Strauss, the millennials’ core values of civic duty, confidence, achievement and street smarts, all in the context of being cooperative team players who are accepting of authority, make them a pleasure to know and to serve. In short, the millennials want to be taught by passionate educators and to be loved by supportive parents.

What more could we want and how lucky can we be? The kids we are scrambling to rear through our busy lives are, at the end of the day, thankful for whatever we can do to make their road to college a little bit smoother, their application process for college a little less scary and their transition to college a step they can make with confidence.

So, let’s get to work. And let’s share our success stories at Hoverings: A Blog for Current and Future College Parents, located on the home page of www.collegeparents.org.

There is ample evidence that Americans gain economic and personal benefits from every extra year of higher education.  The career earnings of someone with a bachelor’s degree approach nearly $1 million more than that of someone with only a high school diploma. The college-goer also makes life-long friendships and and enters into
countless other networking relationships that are personally beneficial.

While most Americans see education beyond high school as a prerequisite to a successful economic and personal life, there is also evidence that a post-secondary education contributes to significant societal benefits.  These benefits include:

• a recognition that the U.S. is increasingly reliant on knowledge workers and that much of the innovation they accelerate through their efforts actually emerges first from research conducted in the nation’s universities;
• a growing body of research that shows that people with more education are more likely to vote, to participate actively in civic affairs, and to perform more community service; and
• more parental involvement in K-12 education, which in turn leads to leads to a virtuous circle of greater high school completion rates and a more pronounced tendency for individuals to want to pursue a college degree.

For all these reasons, a strong national commitment to access and opportunity for college is critical to America’s future.  Many organizations and entities support this goal, of course, but College Parents of America has the potential to stand alone in demonstrating to our varied constituencies that access and opportunity mean more than just “getting in” to college.

With your support, College Parents of America can show that true access must mean opening the door to a college experience that is appropriate for a student’s aspirations, preparation and abilities. College Parents of America is also committed to working with schools and other partners to show that real opportunity will only come from an effective postsecondary system that helps students to get started on the right track and to follow through, with a successful college experience being defined and measured differently for each individual.

America’s higher education system remains the envy of the world, remarkable for its variety and vitality.  But it has not met the long-standing goal of an equitable and efficient system that provides a successful college education to all qualified students.  Through the promotion of an active agenda of a fair college deal for all, College Parents of America has the opportunity to play a critical role in positioning the U.S. to better compete in the global economy.  Please join us in our efforts and tell your family and friends about our site and our Facebook Fan Page.  Thank you.